This article interrogates the moral inflation latent in socialization programmes that court combatants’ compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) through moral character-building identity projects but neglect the unique logic of IHL as an emergency brake on total destruction and elide the liminal subjectivity of combatants on this precipice. The article begins by uncovering two divergent views on combatants’ subjectivity that underpin different approaches to influencing their conduct: one views combatants as functionaries and advocates hardwiring IHL into commands and policies to build shortcuts to combatants’ pre-reflective self-consciousness, while the other views combatants as reflective individuals and aims for their internalization of the ethical values underpinning IHL as a more durable way of promoting restraint. The article then examines the radical potential of combatants’ self-conscious exercise of their existential freedom in war, explores the limits of the use of “identity” inculcation to rein in this freedom, and demonstrates how IHL compliance could itself be an expression of combatants’ authenticity in an existential sense through acknowledging their inherently limited subjectivity as “enemies by accident” in war.

Enforcement is costly, so sometimes states choose not to enforce their laws. We study this choice under rules and under standards. We show that nonenforcement of rules sends a relatively clear signal about state capacity. Regulated parties can use this information and violate law to some extent with impunity. Nonenforcement of standards sends a noisier signal, and this uncertainty may cause regulated parties to comply with law even though the state lacks capacity to enforce, a surprising implication. According to conventional wisdom, standards are costlier to enforce than rules, meaning a switch from rules to standards should decrease compliance. However, we argue that standards, by obscuring the state’s capacity, can increase compliance. We identify the characteristics of standards that yield these effects, and we show that the logic generalizes to the complexity of law as well as its precision.

Compliance with epidemic prevention norms has been found to be higher in developing regions than in developed regions; however, the nature and underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We propose that socioeconomic development of environments changes the adaptive benefits of fundamental social motives, especially disease avoidance and familial motives, which shape variations in compliance during pandemics. To examine the effects of these motives on the relationship between socioeconomic environments and compliance, we conducted three studies measuring environmental socioeconomic development with the Human Development Index (HDI). Study 1 (with two datasets: N = 43,244, 53 countries; N = 94,657, 71 countries) revealed a stable negative correlation between country-level HDI and compliance, even after controlling disease severity, government responses, and individualism. Studies 2 (an analysis of social media text data; N = 22,588, 31 provinces) and 3 (a large-sample survey; N = 6,122, 31 cities) replicated this correlation in China at the provincial and city levels, and identified disease avoidance and familial motives as mediators. These findings provide evidence for how socioeconomic environments shape compliance during pandemics, highlight the importance of familial motives alongside disease avoidance, and offer insights into tailoring public health strategies across diverse environments.

Oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are essential adjuncts in managing malnutrition in hospitalised older people. This study aimed to explore the adherence and palatability of a new porridge supplement (PS) compared to a standard drink-based supplement (DS) in hospitalised older adults. A single-centre multi-method randomised controlled crossover study was conducted on adults aged ≥65 years at risk of malnutrition (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool score 1–4). Each participant was prescribed PS (16 g protein; 249 kcal) and DS (18 g protein; 306 kcal) twice per day for 4 days in crossover sequence. ONS leftovers were weighed, and adherence calculated (% consumed). Palatability ratings were assessed with a 7-point Likert scale, and interviews were conducted with 9 older adults and 5 staff to explore product acceptability. Twenty-seven older people (mean age 80 years, 17 female) participated. Median daily PS intake (26.31% [IQR 10.23–48.02]) was significantly lower compared to DS (66.8% [IQR 26.29–75.37]), and texture of PS was significantly disliked compared to DS. There were no significant differences in the absolute volume consumed between products, and supplements did not replace normal dietary intake. Changes in physical ability and appetite, the hospital culture (e.g., staff attitudes), and palatability (e.g., thickness and taste) of products influenced ONS acceptability. To improve patient-centred nutritional care, participants requested a wider in-hospital range of food-based supplementation with natural ingredients and enhanced training for staff in nutritional care.

Law and society scholars have examined how nonlegal actors, or “legal intermediaries,” construct the meaning of compliance as they translate law into organizational practice and policy. This article applies the legal intermediaries framework to analyze how higher education professionals navigate federal and state immigration law to mitigate the impact of illegality on undocumented students at the institutional level. We find that staff work within the underdefined, flexible, and often complex dimensions of immigration law by developing “creative solutions,” or university-specific policies and practices that interpret and apply existing legal frameworks in ways that broaden access to opportunities for undocumented students. Staff proceed through four steps within this process: developing an understanding of one’s legal and professional context, implementing and troubleshooting solutions, raising awareness and mobilizing support across and beyond the institution, and institutionalizing workarounds. In the process, staff shape broader understandings and organizational treatment of (il)legality at their respective institutions. Through this analysis, we extend the literature on legal intermediaries to the immigration context. We also refine the processes involved in the organizational intermediation of compliance and identify the set of contextual factors that may facilitate or hinder the creative solutions process within and beyond higher education.

Organizations are often drawn into the contested work of criminal law enforcement. Through compulsory process and mandatory reporting laws, governments routinely conscript organizations such as hospitals, banks, and schools into assisting in surveillance activities whose legitimacy is socially contested. In recent years, conscription has been particularly pronounced with online platform companies, whose extensive collections of user data make them frequent sources of information and evidence for law enforcement agencies. How do actors in platform companies navigate compliance with such contested laws? While neoinstitutional theories of law emphasize how perceived compliance can protect organizational legitimacy, this article shows how perceived compliance with contested laws can also undermine it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with legal and operations staff for platform companies and law enforcement agents, this article explains how perceived compliance with contested laws can give rise to a legitimacy dilemma that organizational actors manage through symbolic ambivalence: compliance practices that signal both an organization’s responsiveness to a law, as well as its independence from the aims, consequences, and institutions associated with the law. The article also suggests organizational and legal conditions that shape how platform actors engage in symbolic ambivalence. These findings extend neoinstitutional theory by showing that the relationship between perceived compliance and legitimacy is not straightforward, but contingent, and by explaining how organizational actors manage the legitimacy dilemma brought about by that contingency.

Sophie Legros1 is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Methodology of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She holds a PhD from the Department of International Development at the LSE. Her research explores changes in social norms shaping work, care and security in gang-controlled neighbourhoods in Medellín, Colombia, and the methods best suited to capture those dynamics.

If change is the only constant, how does the law keep pace with technology? Without a centralized judiciary, international law should be especially susceptible to disruption, yet it can be remarkably resilient in practice. I argue that efforts to minimize legal ambiguity, long seen as integral to compliance, can hinder its application to new technologies. Drawing on first principles from psycholinguistics, my theory differentiates between what I call convergent and divergent forms of flexibility. Unlike divergent flexibility, which gives rise to contestation, convergent flexibility tends to promote consensus, even when (1) technology is unprecedented and (2) regulatory interests sharply diverge. To test the theory, $450$ trained legal professionals were commissioned to take part in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that varied technological novelty, legal precision, and political incentives. Participants collectively contributed 280,000 words over 10,000 hours in defense of their professional legal opinions, offering a novel (agent-subjective) measure of compliance. To establish external validity, the experiment is complemented with research into the legal impact of two breakthrough chemical weapons technologies: “super tear gas” and novichok. The findings contribute a general theoretical framework for understanding when and why emerging technologies are legally disruptive.

This paper explores how unrecognised separatist entities in Eurasia – de facto regimes such as Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – engage with international law. It examines whether, and to what extent, these regimes comply with international law, analysing court decisions and legislation to move beyond simplistic views of non-recognition or assumed legality. The findings reveal that de facto regimes tend to mirror the international law approaches of the states they are most closely connected to – whether the territorial state (e.g. Ukraine) or an outside state exercising effective control over the entity (e.g. Russia or Armenia). This pattern is explained by the theory of “acculturation to statehood”: through sustained legal and institutional interaction, these regimes internalise and replicate the legal systems of their reference states. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of de facto regimes in the international legal order.

Comment les professionnels du droit et de la médecine construisent-ils, au tribunal, le statut légal et l’état mental des patients, et comment ces derniers participent-ils à ces constructions? Cet article s’appuie sur l’analyse de 300 audiences à Paris et à New York, au cours desquelles des personnes hospitalisées sans consentement demandent leur sortie. Dans les deux villes, les tribunaux rejettent la grande majorité des requêtes. Ils le font en mobilisant, selon des modalités propres à chaque système, des répertoires juridiques et des capacités de contrôle qui transforment les patients en différents types de sujets utilisables: des personnes dont les droits sont formellement pris en compte à l’audience, mais qui sont néanmoins classées comme nécessitant les interventions sans consentement que la psychiatrie a les moyens d’assurer. À Paris, les professionnels du droit insistent sur les garanties procédurales tout en s’en remettant aux évaluations médicales du consentement des patients, entendu comme une disposition sous-jacente à accepter un traitement au long cours. À New York, les avocats contestent plus directement l’expertise psychiatrique, mais négocient avec médecins et patients autour de la compliance, comprise comme une acceptation de court terme de la médication. L’article propose ainsi de déplacer le regard des figures de sujets autonomes que les dispositifs médico-légaux et sociaux hybrides prétendent produire vers des formes plus contingentes et situées de sujets utilisables, qui rendent possible la coopération professionnelle et le traitement institutionnel dans un contexte de ressources limitées et d’extension des droits des patients.

Academic research institutions using REDCap often face challenges aligning with U.S. FDA requirements for electronic records and signatures under 21 CFR Part 11 (Part 11). A National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences(NCATS) working group developed an implementation guide for Part 11 compliance in REDCap. Within six months after release, 259 individuals representing 164 institutions accessed the guide. Individuals who downloaded the guide reported reduced vendor reliance, improved documentation, and establishment Part 11-ready REDCap instances. This working group demonstrated how collaboration between technical and regulatory experts at many peer institutions is effective in improving regulatory compliance across the research enterprise.